Nullarbor Plain

Friday:  Dinner wasn’t until 9.30pm last night due to late departure.  Was ready for it, needless to say.  Lentil soup, lamb fillet and veg, chocolate pudding with butterscotch sauce and coffee.  Hit the bed at 11pm –and slept soundly this time till 6.30am!
Sunrise found us on the eastern edge of the Nullarbor, and by breakfast we were in full view of this awesome expanse of nothingness … just scattered low scrub as far as the eye can see.  An occasional hawk in the sky is the only sign of wildlife.  Every now and then scudding shower clouds roll in low overhead from the Bight, a couple of hundred km south.

10 am sees us stop at Cook – once a thriving railway town, now just a ghost town, population 4.  We are allowed off here to stretch our legs and sample the Plains air (and flies!!).  The little souvenir store does a brisk trade.  The loco refuels here, and the water tanks on the carriages are recharged.  We are at the point where the two teams building the trans-continental rail from east and west finally joined up.  We are also part way along the 478km stretch of track that runs straight as a ruler across this flat limestone plateau that was once the floor of a vast sea.

Lunch time:  more of the same .. more of the same.  I have never seen such changeless scenery in all my life.  Horizon to horizon, flat and treeless.  We were told that good rains this winter has made the Nullarbor its greenest in 50 years.  Vegie tart and cabbage salad with treacle tart for lunch.  Then a nap.  Still more of the same as evening approached, until at last we left the plain and headed into Kalgoorlie.  A few short stops along the way to drop off mail and provisions for railway workers and pastoral properties.

Dinner was a little rushed as we came back into civilisation.  Kangaroo steak and veg, with whiskey pudding.
Then a 2 hour bus tour of Kalgoorlie Boulder.  Lots of historic buildings in an amazing variety of international styles, all dating from the late 1800’s.  Then up to the lookout to see the “Super Pit” .. the huge open-cut gold mine that is gouging out the area where the old shaft mines used to be, and going deeper.  US and Canadian consortium now operate it, having bought out Alan Bond when he ran into trouble with the law. 
One more sleep, then Perth!
More pics here